The Honorable Turtle Bunbury sounds like he should be a character in a book. He's an historian, writer, explorer and a member of the landed gentry in Ireland. He also dashes around the world, bringing home stories about exotic, far-flung places.

But Turtle is real, being the son of Lord and Lady Rathdonnell of Lisnavagh. And though he's titled The Honourable Turtle Bunbury, he rarely using the appendage to his name.

That's the only aspect of his background that is not an integral part of his life, as he says growing up in the Rathvilly estate deeply influenced him.

The 30-something says that he's always been interested in both writing and history and now has several titles under his belt. As a travel writer, he's written books on Africa, Mexico, USA and Europe with the latest tome concentrating on Sri Lanka. He's also drawn from his own background with historical books about the landed gentry in counties Kildare and Wicklow.

It all began, when, at a very young age, he was inquisitive about his own past. He says that Lisnavagh estate was a 'gorgeous place to grow up in.'

'It was wonderful living in such a historical place,' he recalls. 'I was always fascinated about who built the house or who planted the trees there. It had a definite influence on me and definitely inspired an interest in history.'

Turtle also says that being the son of a Lord and Lady made him 'a bit different,' growing up as a Protestant in a Catholic country.

'You observe more than join in,' he muses. 'Am I an outsider? Possibly, but I know a lot of different worlds.'

His travelling bug bit early, when as a young teenager he'd board the ferry on his own and travel to his boarding school in Scotland. He says that as he was going to boarding school anyway, he chose Scotland because it would broaden his mind.

After graduating with a history degree from Trinity College, Dublin, in the thriving 1990's, the young Turtle headed for far-flung Hong Kong to look for work.

'The idea of going far away was good,' he explains, 'and Hong Kong at the time was interesting because it was about to be handed back to the Chinese.'

His first writing job was with a business paper and gave him the opportunity to explore countries like Vietnam, Cambodia and Burma, all ex-communist economies breaking into new markets.

He and his friend, James Fennell, a photographer, next found an inspired way to travel the world. They came up with the idea of exploring architecture and house interiors in different continents and so landed in Zimbabwe in the year 2000.

'I loved the concept of going to a place and having to study a country and its people, so that you can write about them,' the observer in Turtle explains. They came up with the idea of writing and photographing interiors because it made more commercial sense.

'Newspaper articles are out of date an hour after you write them,' he says, laughing. 'When I tried to write pieces about Zimbabwe, every time I sent them, something else would happen in the country and I'd have to re-write it. Articles about interiors and houses should stay interesting for a time, and from a commercial point of view, you can sell them all over the world.'

'We both wanted to get out of Ireland because it's too cold here in January,' Turtle continues. 'And we both knew that we had to travel when we're young.'

When their book about Africa was a success, the pair travelled to other countries, with the latest edition concentrating on Sri Lanka.

Though Turtle is about to get married, he says that he'll continue to write about travel, saying that even his honeymoon will provide material for him.

Turtle and James are currently working on a book called Vanishing Ireland, in which Turtle interviews people from all over Ireland about disappearing crafts, trades and ways of life. The idea for the tome came from Betty Scott of Ballybit, who began working in Lisnavagh during the Second World War. Through researching the work, he's met characters from the ages of 75 years to 102 years old.

'It's an incredible trip into the past,' Turtle enthuses. 'It's wonderful to capture these people's stories, because their ways of life are disappearing. It feels like the right thing to do to preserve them.'

It would seem that no matter what kind of writing he delves into, the historical aspect will always come into it. He says that his interest in architecture, style and design comes from his grandmother, Pamela Drew, who was a celebrated artist and who re-designed Lisnavagh, while another grandparent, Hubert Butler, from Kilkenny, was a writer. The impact that his family and its history has had on Turtle comes through, again and again, whether in his work, or how he looks upon life. Always the outside observer, he says that travel is good for the mind, yet the call of Rathvilly is still strong. Now living in Dublin, he intends to move down to the home-place in the near future.

With his Vanishing Ireland book due out in October, he harbours ambitions to break into fiction.

'I'll make time to write a novel,' he concludes, laughing. 'I'll give it a lash, and if it turns out that I can't write for toffee, then I'll return to being a historian.'

With Turtle's colourful past and present life, no doubt, he'll have enough material to write several works of fiction.